Chairman, Ministers.
Today I've
repeatedly heard how
irrelevant my
department has become.
Why do we need agents?
The Double-O section?
Isn't it all rather quaint?
Well, I suppose I see a different world
than you do.
And the truth is that
what I see frightens me.
I'm frightened because our enemies
are no longer known to us.
They do not exist on a map.
They're not nations.
They are individuals.
Look around you.
Who do you fear?
Can you see a face?
A uniform? A flag? No.
Our world is not
more transparent now.
It's more opaque.
It's in the shadows.
That's where we
must do battle.
So, before you declare us irrelevant,
ask yourselves,
how safe do you feel?
I've just one
more thing to say.
My late husband was
a great lover of poetry.
And, um. . .
I suppose some of it sunk in,
despite my best intentions.
And here today I remember this,
I think from Tennyson:
"We are not now
that strength,
"which in old days
Moved earth and heaven;
"That which we are, we are;
"One equal temper
of heroic hearts,
"Made weak by time and fate,
but strong in will
"To strive, to seek,
"to find and not to yield."